Another company wants to take billionaires to the wreck of the Titanic in a submarine. Yes, really

• Larry Connor, an American billionaire, is going to visit the wreck of the Titanic in a submersible to prove that it is a safe experience.

• He will do it in collaboration with the founder of Triton Subs, a company dedicated to the manufacturing of personal, luxury and commercial submersibles.

One of the most popular news stories of last summer was, without a doubt, the explosion of the OceanGate submarine that killed five people. The company was dedicated to showing wealthy people the remains of the Titanic and, on this occasion, the trip did not end well. The company closed and left an important message on the table: the ocean is dangerous and these types of experiences can be fatal.

Now another billionaire is going to try it again to prove it’s safe.

OceanGate wasn’t alone. First of all, it’s worth remembering that OceanGate wasn’t the only company of its kind. Eos is another company specializing in this type of underwater experience out of reach of most humans. There are also companies like Triton and U-Boat Worx, dedicated to building personal submersibles. It’s easy to imagine what it would mean for these companies if a submarine like Titan exploded.

In the case of Triton, the company had delivered 18 personal submersibles over the past 15 years, Craig Barnett, the company’s sales director, told the Wall Street Journal. He points out that they had 15 other projects in the pipeline before this catastrophic event and one of them was immediately canceled: “We had a four million dollar submarine we were building for a family yacht and the wife canceled it,” he says.

A few days after the Titan explosion, the phone rang.

Larry Connor. This is the name of this billionaire real estate investor, founder of The Connor Group. If it sounds familiar to you, it may be because some time ago he went down into the Mariana Trench and, shortly after, he was one of the first tourists to visit the International Space Station (and complains because he had to do a lot of work ).

He was on the other end of the line and told Barnett that “we had to build a submarine that could dive repeatedly and safely (to Titanic’s depth) and show the world that you could do it, and Titan was just a gadget.” In his own words:

“I want to teach people around the world that although the ocean is extremely powerful, if done right it can be amazing and enjoyable and truly life changing.”

Plan. So, and since telling it is not the same as living it, Connor, along with Patrick Lahey (co-founder of Triton), are going to descend to where the remains of the Titanic are located. To do this, they are going to use a submarine called the Triton 4000/2 Abyssal Explorer, a two-person submersible capable of diving to a depth of 4,000 meters. It costs a mere $20 million. That’s not money. Small change.

When? It is not known. At the moment, neither Connor nor Triton have confirmed when they intend to carry out this unique journey that ended so badly on previous occasions. Overall, the Titan was a very questionable submarine in terms of safety and certification. Triton’s goal is to demonstrate that these experiences can be safe and if he is not very clear about his capabilities he will certainly not take risks in this letter. We’ll see.

From the Sea to Venus. Guillermo Sohnlein, one of the co-founders of OceanGate, has not given up and is already working on his next goal: a human colony on Venus that he wants to have ready by the year 2050. The idea is not so much to colonize the planet (which is as big as hell as we can imagine), but to establish a floating colony of a thousand people 48 kilometers from the surface. According to Sohnlein, the pressure and temperature conditions there are more moderate and allow life.

Image | Triton Sabes

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